


Steady Love

by buckybarney



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Hatred
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-18
Updated: 2020-05-18
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:48:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24249064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buckybarney/pseuds/buckybarney
Summary: Bucky Barnes is a patient man and his love for you is no different as he waits for you to learn to love yourself.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Reader, James "Bucky" Barnes/Reader
Kudos: 42





	Steady Love

**Author's Note:**

> Based on the prompt - “please…I just-I really just need you to hold me”

For as long as you could remember you had these feelings, thoughts in your head, that swirled around whenever you got too close to someone. The words that occupied your mind were devious and cruel, yet you convinced yourself you deserved them – tainted, different, unloveable, to name a few. 

You constantly asked yourself why you felt this way - you were no different from anyone else you knew, but nevertheless, you couldn’t shake the feeling that something had crawled in your heart and corrupted you, making you unable of accepting love from others, unable of getting close to people. 

Your heart was akin to a long-forgotten house, haunted by your own demons, but waiting for the right tenant to open its doors, clear the dust, and bring some life back inside. But like most broken things, what you wanted most in the world was to be loved.

Getting there, however, seemed like a rebellion against everything you thought you were and everything your mind told you to believe.

⋆

As you expected, your thoughts became infinitely worse when you joined the Avengers, but no one seemed to notice. 

You were grateful, truly, but at the same time, you wanted someone to know, wanted someone to force you to be seen, because you were losing faith in your ability to open up on your own.

So, when Bucky Barnes joined the Avengers and slowly began chipping away at the barriers on your heart like an experienced criminal opening a locked safe to steal your most guarded treasure, you were conflicted.

On one hand, you wanted to remain as anonymous as possible, wanted to curl in on yourself, and slowly flicker away like a tiny flame that was poked too hard, but you were also hopeful at Bucky’s arrival because his efforts to get you to open up sparked a new kind of hope in you, unlike any you had felt before. 

You knew deep down that Bucky was persistent because he saw you in a way no one else did. Bucky understood the way you felt; he knew the decay that was in your heart because it had been in his own heart too. And Bucky, so experienced with the deceptive workings of self-blame and inner turmoil, recognized himself in your eyes and actions, he saw his past in your very self. 

He would be damned if he let another soul suffer as he had for so long. 

Bucky intended for his return to New York to change people, to brighten their days and drip yellow sunshine on lives, rather than cover them with the dark hues he once painted with as the Winter Soldier. 

And now, you were his main focus.

⋆

You fell for Bucky slowly, enraptured by his gentle goofy demeanor and his unwavering loyalty. You loved him after missions when he held your trembling hands on the flight home, you loved him in the mornings when he would wake up early to surprise you with breakfast and flowers, and you loved him when he thought no one was watching as he slipped into his most natural state, freed from the gaze of others.

Bucky loved you too and you knew this for a fact, as sure as a sunrise or moonfall, but his love scared you despite the twinge of excitement it offered you. You had never been comfortable with love but Bucky was always patient despite being so obvious in his affections, and for once you wanted to return his love but you were not quite sure how, so you began working harder and harder to form a connection with Bucky, despite being so out of your comfort zone. 

The others picked up on what was happening and quietly supported Bucky in his pursuit of your happiness and your attempts to return his affections, all of them rooting for the two of you to get together and be happy for once. You opened up to Bucky slowly. 

You would watch movies in his apartment when he invited you, you sent him pictures and little trinkets that reminded you of him, and you even engaged in real, deep conversations with him more than once. He could tell that you were trying hard but struggling to be loved, despite so clearly loving him back, and his heart grew even fonder at your continued attempts to open to him despite your fears and doubts. 

He loved your fragile smile that shifted to a shy grin and gentle shake of your head when he flirted with you terribly, only using the worst pick up lines imaginable. (Or maybe he really thought they were good? You hadn’t decided yet.)

He loved when you gazed fondly out the window, staring at life below on the city streets with wonder. He loved when you tried to cook, and failed, then were consumed in laughter that shook his core. Yeah, he loved you, that was something no one questioned.

You loved him, despite your past, and as time crawled by you opened up to him more so much that it became hard to imagine a life without him.

⋆

Bucky had been chipping away at your resolve after he fell for you so early on, right after he met you really, and the dam broke for good when the two of you were watching a movie one night, months into your friendship. 

The movie was a real tear-jerker, not the normal flick you would put on for a night after a hard mission, but it had good reviews and you never could deny Bucky anything, not when he asked with those big eyes of his.

You broke when the final scene played in the movie, it wasn’t even the saddest scene of the movie as the family was finally reunited in the end despite all odds, but you were weak at such obvious love flowing through each member of that tiny unit. Everything be damned, you wanted that, and you were tired of denying it to yourself.

You tried to shift away from Bucky, out of his arms a fraction just to hide your compromised condition, but he noticed the change in you immediately. 

Of course, he did; ever since meeting you every single atom of his being had been tuned to you, attentive and watchful in his efforts to love you fully as you deserved. Your growing sniffles caused him to frown. 

“Aren’t you happy with the ending, Y/N?” he prodded, shifting to hold your face as you tried to turn away. He made it his mission to never let you hide and this would be no different.

A harsh shake of your head, a fresh wave of tears, and he realized with a jolt you saw yourself in them, that tiny family reunited and bound together with love after a grueling journey to find each other. 

More accurately, you saw yourself in that little group and saw too, Bucky working so very hard to love you. 

You saw your love for him in that moment and finally realized that you were tired of hiding within yourself, tired of hiding from yourself.

Bucky watched your final wall break beneath his fingertips as you leap into him and buried your face in his neck, breathing him in and inhaling the peaceful, steady love he radiated. 

You loved him, and you told him so, quietly but resolutely. You loved him.

Bucky never once expected to confess his love to you like this, much less after you confessed to him first, but you surprised him yet again and you said it first. 

Bucky gripped you tighter, his heart dipping under the weight of his love for you.

“Shh, baby, I know you do. I know, doll.” Bucky moved you further onto his lap to hold you against his chest as he showered his love across your cheeks and brows like summer rain. You looked up at him with misty eyes and a ruptured heart.

“You- But, I- … But how did you know Buck?” you stammered out, slowly as your mind worked to understand what he was saying.

He drew you even closer and you moved instinctively to wrap your legs around his waist; If you were going to do this, let him in for good, then you would do it right, damn it, and you wanted to feel his touch after feeling starved of human affection for so long.

Bucky kissed you gently on the lips while savoring the feeling of you safe in his arms before he carefully explained how he fell for you when he first saw your smile, and how he saw when you tried to run from yourself. He loved you then, he explained, because sometimes the most beautiful things are those that don’t know they are beautiful, but you always shone to him brighter than anything else in the room, in the world, in his whole life. 

He explained to you, too, how he watched you pull away from him, consumed by the thoughts in your mind, and he understood how that felt, how badly that hurt. 

Bucky saw you, you realized, and he continued to love you. No … Bucky loved you because he saw you, and nothing in your life made your heart feel quite the way that realization did; like it could jump right from your rib cage in a furious whirl of anxious anticipation, giddy, yet unsure.

You pulled back slightly and looked into his eyes, completely absorbed in your pure amazement at the man in front of you and the love he gave you even when you weren’t ready to accept it.

Another smaller sob left you, taking flight without your permission, but it was one borne of relief and held aloft by a crisp, fresh hope that this was real, you and Bucky could actually do this, you could let him love you. Bucky, always the womanizer in his youth, never did know how to soothe a woman in tears, and he fumbled to remove you from his lap to grab a tissue, some water, anything to help you. 

Bless him, he was so gentle with your heart; You could see it in his eyes that he would die before he hurt you.

“Wait- stop, Bucky I’m okay, I promise. Overwhelmed, but okay,” you assured, rubbing the makeup from under your eyes and laughing, “More than okay, actually, thanks to you.” 

You reached out to stroke his cheek but he caught your hand in the air between you and kissed it, grasping it between his own as softly as he held your heart. Bucky smiled and released his breath, relieved, and at peace. He drew your other hand into his larger ones, cradling both of them together within the warmth of his palms. 

“What can I do for you, doll” he implored, searching your eyes for the right move, waiting for your signal.

“Please…I just-I really just need you to hold me,” you spoke, looking up from you joined hands into his waiting eyes.

At that statement, Bucky kissed you again, softer this time, and assured you that there was nothing he would rather do, that he would hold you forever if he could, he swore it. 

Bucky smirked then, suddenly mischievous, and gently hauled you into his arms and stood, twirling you around in circles suspended by his outstretched arms. You slid around him easily like a devout planet caught in the gravitational pull of its sun.

⋆

Bucky held you tightly all night, just as you had asked, and he did not let you go until the morning colors peaked their shiny faces through your blinds and beckoned you both out of bed the next day.


End file.
